The three toughest toll PR assignments

Someone asked recently what were the three toughest PR jobs in tolling in north America. The answer in ascending order of difficulty:

3. Carl DeFebo's job at the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission fully taxes any PR guy (or gal). There's been the Governor Ed Rendell trying to privatize them. They've got the whole of the north of the state wild over their plans to toll I-80. People regularly say the place is a cesspool of patronage and corruption. Their chairman Mitch Rubin was fired after the Feds said he was the subject of a criminal investigation. Now the real boss there Tim Carson has resigned making an extraordinary confession to drunk driving convictions in 2003 and 2006.

DeFebo deserves an award for Creative Excellence in Toll PR.

He managed to spin it as "carpooling" to the Philadelphia Inquirer when then Vice-Chair Carson got a so-called 'girlfriend' at the Turnpike a job as his driver while his own driving license was suspended for DUI.

2. Phil Frame at the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit/Windsor who has to try to put the best face on the actions of the wildest and weirdest toll bridge owner in the hemisphere, Matty Moroun, 81. The bridge company there is notorious for buying politicians, bulldozing neighborhoods, fencing off public parks, disregarding contracts, and all kinds of other nefarious activities. He is reported to have asked $3 billion for his bridge though it needs replacement, only grosses $60m/yr, and faces competition in a few years from two much better connected, modern crossings.

See Windsor Star cartoon nearby:

1. PR at the West Virginia Turnpike which the media and politicians of every persuasion subject to relentless attack. For example the Turnpike guys were recently taken apart limb by proverbial limb after six feet of snows and road blockages left hundreds of motorists stranded. You'd think from the furore that dozens of people had frozen to death in their cars on the Turnpike while Turnpike crews, uncaring, slept the night at home in warm beds. No one was even hospitalized, let alone killed, and crews worked around the clock trying to unsnarl the mess.

And last year every politician and media person in the state thought it was totally unreasonable for the WV Turnpike to have any increase on toll rates last set in 1981.

General Manager at the Turnpike, Greg Barr does the Turnpike PR himself. The job is so impossible he's never been able to get anyone to fill the position.

TOLLROADSnews 2010-02-21